The Department of Geological Sciences is recognized internationally for research and training excellence. Our faculty, students, and staff explore physical, chemical, and biological processes that have shaped our planet over the last 4.6 billion years. Our research and training advances fundamental and applied geoscience knowledge within three themes: (i) Biological and Environmental Co-evolution of Earth; (ii) Dynamics of Earth System Processes in Modern and Deep Time; and (iii) Mineral and Energy Resources for a Sustainable Future.

Our building is attractive and functional, and includes a Natural Sciences Museum with three full-scale dinosaur replicas, and spectacular rock and mineral displays that are open to the public throughout the year. 

There are excellent teaching and research facilities for geology and geophysics, and we offer undergraduate and graduate programs in Geology, Geophysics, Environmental Earth Science, and Paleobiology. The department is also home to the oldest undergraduate student society on campus, the Ore Gangue, which is celebrating its 90th Anniversary in 2024.

Please explore the website to discover more about the Department of Geological Sciences.

The construction of the Geology Building marked a return to the early style of campus architecture. The Department of Geology had been formed in 1927 and for the next six decades was based in the east wing of the Engineering Building. A growing faculty and student population had forced the department to cobble together makeshift accommodation in trailers and remote campus buildings. Designed by the architectural firm Black, McMillan and Larson of Regina, the building was given a neo-Collegiate Gothic exterior to blend harmoniously with the other buildings in the central campus.

The two-and-a-half-storey building was erected just south or the bowl side of the W.P. Thompson Biology Building providing 8,543 square metres for office, laboratory, library, classroom, and storage space for rock and fossil samples. The exterior was clad with greystone and dressed with tyndal limestone. The dominant feature of the interior was a two story atrium that featured the mosaics for the former exterior walls of the Thompson Building, a life-size skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex and geological and biological displays.

The $18.5 million Geology Building was completed in 1988 and fused the space between Physics and Biology and linked, through a walkway, with Chemistry, creating an integrated science complex on campus.